Alpha 10: the reckoning

I am not a Christian. Ten weeks after embarking on one of the rare growing Christian movements of recent years, my position about the truth of the most popular religion in the universe is not altered. Perhaps this will not surprise you: I approached the Alpha Course with as open a mind as an orthodox atheist can have, but it seems that I need someone more charismatic (or Charismatic) to bring me to Jesus. Tuesday evenings at St Mary's in Islington were peaceful, interesting and oh so English, but also painfully shallow, and therefore frustrating. Again, perhaps this is not astounding, as Alpha offers fewer than 24 hours' instruction on a religion that its disciples describe as a lifelong journey.

This course was not without personal revelation. We all got on just fine, and after the final session concluded, we went to the pub to wrap up a not insignificant time together. The low point followed, when Barbara, with whom I had had fun, explained that following my sturdy but polite defence of science and attack on healing (the most galling session), she became convinced that with regards to the supernatural, there was "something rather than nothing". I had managed to reinforce her latent suspicion of science towards a more faithful position. Christ alive, how disappointing is that? She is thoughtful and intelligent. She listened and argued with me, and chose an emotional and visceral position instead. As I do this for a living, I will certainly modify my rhetoric as a result.

In researching the Alpha Course, people expressed a broad range of animosity towards it: accusations of brainwashing; latent (or in some cases overt) homophobia; one friend who bewilderingly was promised that her student loan would be cleared within a year of finding faith. My experience did not reflect any of this. But that is the nature of the franchise. The course itself is prescriptive, with a rigid structure and bounteous books and DVDs. But how it goes down depends on who is standing at the front. Toby, the curate at St Mary's, is much more a kindly university tutor than a preacher. I'm not convinced that Alpha suits him at all, with its touchy-feely faux sincerity masking the unequivocal certainty of conservative Christianity. Frequently, his response to hard questions from my fellow course mates and me was a refreshing "I don't know".

God's franchise, Christianity, works in the same way. I used to be utterly baffled that worshippers of the same god could not agree about whether it is ok for a man to have sex with a man, or if life begins at conception, or if hell exists, or if Mary had sex, or any of the multitude of contradictions between denominations of Christ. But these are strengths of the faith, because the disagreements exist to the exclusion of the unthinkable atheism. I witnessed a galvanising ethnocentrism in our discussions: probing enough for some to think or say "I don't buy it" (about the resurrection for example) but without that being nearly enough to push them into not buying any of it.

It may be impossible for someone like me to comprehend faith. As displayed during Alpha, evangelical Christianity simply fails to stand up to even the most superficial scrutiny. It seems unfathomable that intelligent people could genuinely believe that Christ rose from the dead, or that the Bible is not frightening, or that disease can be cured by magic. But they do. This movement feeds off ignorance and the deep-rooted latent cultural Christianity that bestows familiarity with the language and promises, but doesn't offer up enough information to say "hang on, this doesn't make any sense, and isn't even very fair".

The conclusions I draw about Christianity based on this superficial introduction are far from profound. Organised religion is most concerned with self-preservation; church goes some way to answering a tribal and social need; personal faith and religion are related, but the latter strives to consume the former. On the course, the faithful were keen to stress that an atheist's bemusement with faith is effortlessly comparable with their continual struggle to understand their own emotional beliefs. Alpha preys upon that, asserting itself to the exclusion of any other position. As such it is manipulative, and in my opinion a dark force. Alpha encourages you to think, but not too hard.

The course was attended by kind and smart people, all curious about something they feel, something I do not. I hope we will see each other again: it is clear to me that hanging out with people of faith is a damned sight more productive than wailing at each other across internet threads or via books. I will be hooking up with the Reverend Toby Hole next week, when we are seeing the wondrous new film about the historical bearded man I most admire – Charles Darwin. It's rather provocatively entitled "Creation", and this irony is bewitching. The revelation and truth I witnessed is this: if you are an atheist, you could do a lot worse than spend some time around those with whom you most profoundly disagree. Amen.